[lit-ideas] Re: [lit-ideas] Le Pesanteur et la Grâce
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 7 Aug 2004 00:58:18 EDT
We are considering S. Weil's posthumous* thought,
"The demonstrable correlation of opposites
is an image of the transcendental correlation
of contradictories."
(* Geary corrects me (offlist): "The thought is not posthumous, unless in a
'figure of speech'. Weil was certainly alive when she thought it"). R. Paul
re-considers my 'colour' illustration as it may apply to Weil's
generalization, and writes:
>How many things are said to be red or not red here? If we
>latch onto the lower left proposition 'Some...are...' then we [might] have
>'Something ('at least one thing,' as logicians say) is red. Where do we go
from
>here and how are we helped to go there by the square of opposition? Beats
me.
>This is something the S of O can't handle unless there is an offstage
>demonstration that for all x, if x is blue, x is not red, and even then it's
>impossible to see where, on a diagram which uses _as such a diagram must_
the
>same subject and predicate throughout, a proposition with a different
subject
>and predicate would go. (The truth of 'All cats are mammals' doesn't bear
on the
>truth of 'All whales are mammals' e.g.), so there is no place for
propositions
>about red things and blue things in the same illustratrtion.
Indeed. I stand corrected. Note, however, I was thinking of the
'trascendental' datum -- "Nothing can be red and blue all over at the same
time" --
which, incidentally, is listed as 'analytic a priori' in
_http://faculty.washington.edu/wtalbott/phil450/trB&S.htm_
(http://faculty.washington.edu/wtalbott/phil450/trB&S.htm)
Rather, R. Paul uses the 'animal' example:
>The truth of 'All cats are mammals' doesn't bear on the
>truth of 'All whales are mammals'.
I guess the parallel would be:
x is a cat.
x is a whale.
As R. Paul observes, indeed:
>The truth of 'All cats are mammals' doesn't
>bear on the truth of 'All whales are mammals'.
But, a la "nothing can be red and blue all over at the same time" we could
concoct a corresponding analytic truth of zoology:
"Nothing can be a cat and a whale at the same time."
(Conditional: [It is analytic that] if x is a cat, (then) x is not a whale).
(**)
(** Again, Geary corrects me offlist: "In a manner of speaking. Think
"catfish".")
R. Paul concludes:
>'Opposite' is a word Weil might have thought about
>for more than five minutes if she wanted to say
>something intelligible about 'contradictories'.
But, again, remember this all posthumous, and thus somewhat ironic to judge
whether she might (or then, might have not) thought about this "for more than
five minutes".
More charitably, J. Krueger writes:
>explore how saying against is different from placing or positioning
>against? I have some ideas of what that looks like to me...
"The demonstrable correlation of opposites is an image of the
transcendental correlation of contradictories."
Mmm, not sure what Weil meant -- which is back to E. Holder's observation --
worth repeating here:
"I studied Simone Weil in an existentialism class. ... My
friend and I would sit there completely baffled. We had
absolutely no idea what anyone was talking about. It
seemed like nonsensical conversation after nonsensical
conversation. I probably would have [dropped the Existentialism
class] if I hadn't needed it as a prerequisite. Interestingly
enough, both of us would up doing extremely well in the
course."
which, if you think, goes on to illustrate rather well that
"The demonstrable correlation of opposites
is an image of the transcendental correlation
of contradictories."
(Or 'Whatever', as L. J. Kramer would put it -- :-)).
What we need is Geary's list of polar opposites, vs. contradictory opposites
and other types of 'contrary' terms. It's can't be as simple as red and
non-red (cf. war and peace).
Cheers,
JL
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